46 years after they worked together in I.V. Sasi’s 1979 film Alavuddinum Athbutha Vilakkum, Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth are all set to come together in a film that will be directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj.
Lokesh will plunge into this prestigious project immediately after he completes the sequel to Coolie, which will star Aamir Khan with Rajinikanth.
Kamal Haasan had once told me, “Rajinikanth said if we do a film together, he won’t direct it. It has to be either me or someone else. It would be quite interesting to do a film with him.”
Speaking fondly about his friendship and rivalry with Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan said, “I’d do anything he asks me to, no question of refusing him. Both of us were young actors who started from scratch. He was the bus conductor with acting aspirations. I was the clapper boy who got the clap in my very film(Kamal Haasan played a character with venereal disease in his first adult role). We didn’t have fathers to make movies for us. But we had the same godfather K.Balachander. We’ve done around ten films together, most of them were hits, though we did have failures. We’ve done three films for our mutual mentor K. Balachander.”
Kamal Haasan also declared he can never say no to Rajnikanth. “I’ve done guest roles in Rajni’s films. It’s quite strange, but our paths as actors were always intertwined. Initially, we were both typecast as villains. I got fed up of doing those and went away to Kerala to do Malayalam films. Then, his career as a villain took off, and I returned to Chennai to pursue a career in Tamil cinema. We made our way up together. Rajni once pointed out that though he’s four years my senior, I’m his senior professionally and that he would take my advice about doing a film with me, if there’s occasion for us to star together.”
